Catch me on First Things First with Dominique DiPrima @diprimaradio on @KBLA1580 December 6th at 8:00 a.m. (PST). I will be discussing SB 2 (Police Decertification), SB 796 (Returning Bruce’s Beach), the California Reparations Task Force and much more.
Manhattan Beach, CA - In 1912, Willa and Charles Bruce bought a parcel of land in Manhattan Beach. They operated a lodge, cafe, and dance hall on the property. It was a refuge for Black beachgoers to enjoy a weekend away. The area became known as Bruce’s Beach.
But the couple were harassed and threatened by white neighbors and members of the Ku Klux Klan. By 1924, city officials condemned the property and forced the Bruces to sell and leave, robbing future members of the Bruce family of generational wealth from the land.
After a unanimous vote in the California Legislature, the state has returned a beachfront parcel of land that was taken from the Bruce family nearly 100 years ago. California State Sen. Steven Bradford (D), who wrote the bill, says the measure corrects “a horrible injustice” that denied the Bruce family the right to build generation wealth “simply because of racism.”
Los Angeles — In September, Senate Bill 796 unanimously passed the California Senate, ensuring Los Angeles County gives back land seized from a Black family.
"This property was stolen from the Bruces," Senator Steven Bradford from California District 35 said." We're returning what was stolen, what was rightfully theirs."
(CNN) A stretch of prime Southern California beachfront real estate can now be returned to the descendants of its rightful Black owners, nearly a century after the parcel was taken by the city of Manhattan Beach.
LOS ANGELES — With the flick of a pen Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom codified the return of prime beachfront property in Southern California to the descendants of a Black couple who were stripped of their land and driven out by the Ku Klux Klan nearly 100 years ago.
California lawmakers this month unanimously passed a law to allow the return of what was once a thriving coastal resort that catered to Black residents when racial segregation barred them from many beaches.
GARDENA, Calif. - Standing among lawmakers and families whose sons died at the hands of police, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a host of reform bills that span from decertifying police officers from ever getting another job to opening up records when there has been sustained findings of racism. Other new laws open up records, put stricter laws into place when tear gas can be used and forbids the use of traditional face-down holds that cause "positional asphyxia."
SACRAMENTO — In 2019, Fouzia Almarou was speaking at a police reform rally at Rowley Park in Gardena when a man she didn’t know made her a promise she didn’t quite trust.
Gardena police had shot Almarou’s son, Kenneth Ross Jr., at the park a year earlier, and she was marking the one-year “angel-versary” of his death.
